


Who Lives, Who Dies (Who Tells Your Story)

by Kangoo



Series: Miscellaneous Warcraft Stuff [3]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Canon is A Vague Concept, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Purple Prose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: Miscellanous drabbles based on Hamilton lyrics





	Who Lives, Who Dies (Who Tells Your Story)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://americankimchi.tumblr.com/post/159908197696/lyrics-that-im-forever-bitter-never-made-it-into)
> 
> I have many feelings about Illidan and Kael'thas

_And a million years ago she said to me ‘this one’s mine’…so I stood by, do you know why? I love my sister more than anything in this life, I will choose her happiness over mine every time_

_-_ Congratulations

  


Illidan is cast in darkness, never to be free again, left out of sight and minds forever. It would have been a kinder fate to die at the hand of those who locked him there and threw away the key. Malfurion would never forgive himself for the death of his twin — good! Let him regret. But life has never been kind to Illidan or keen on making Malfurion suffer, and he rots away in the shadows, hate like ashes and embers in his throat — burning and smothering both until he gasps for breath in-between his cries.

  


Time passes. The world forgets, as it is prone to do, about the mistakes of the past, and Illidan falls into those with ease born from bitter words whispered by those he trusted the most.

  


The world forgets and the first thing it forgets is that he loved his brother more than his own life.

  


(It’s harder to hold on to fondness when it is for a man you banished to the darkest pit of hell, he supposes.)

  


.

  


In the end, it all comes down to Malfurion.

  


It always does, doesn’t it?

  


Illidan sees him with vines twisted in his hair and sharp fangs in his grin, happier the further he is from Illidan’s influence. He sees Tyrande and her moonlit eyes and the curve of her smile when she looks at his twin. He sees it all and he gives up.

  


'Pick your battles', the distant voice of his brother reminds him, and Illidan wonders when his brother stopped caring about the troubles he gets into. Wonders when he reached the end of Malfurion’s patience for him, and why he still fights like he’s waiting for Malfurion to drag him out of it.

  


Wonders when he started fighting against his brother rather than alongside him.

  


He picks his battles and he throws himself into them like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, like it’s the only thing he _can_ do.

  


He picks his battle until it hurts to breath in the smoke and ashes and he feels empty and relieved, until he stops swimming against the current and lets it swallow him.

  


He picks survival and destruction.

  


It’s not as much of a sacrifice as he wish it were.

  


.

  


“Ten thousand years, Illidan, and you still cannot pick your battles.”

  


Illidan watches his army crumble and the Legion crumbles and his entire world falls to pieces with it _._ Victory never felt so right and so wrong all at once — then again, it doesn’t quite feel like a victory, either.

  


He chose this one fight ten thousand years ago. It shouldn’t be so hard to realize he won’t survive it — he never _wanted_ to, after all. But now his brother stands over the ruins of an empire he once would have laid down at his feet and it feels less like betrayal than it feels like he’s run to the end of a circle.

  


Everything stops and starts where they are. It always did. Illidan fights and Malfurion resists and in the end—

  


—Illidan gives up.


End file.
